22 Studies to Help You Decode Social Media Strategy – TrackMaven

22 Studies to Help You Decode Social Media Strategy

decodesocialmedia

Science is amazing. It helps us appreciate the wonders we see around us every day, from the iridescent colors of soap bubbles to conversations with loved ones.

Science helps us understand the world around us: not only why the sky is blue, but also everyday things that impact our business. For example, why do some social media efforts succeed, and others fail?

What matters the most in social media marketing is what works, what doesn’t and why. That’s where the merge between the marketing aspect and then the social media strategy behind it all. Understanding the science – in addition to the art – will help you achieve your marketing goals and what strategies you need to use to move forward.

22 Studies to Help You Decode Social Media Strategy

Content – Headlines and Titles

Titling your content correctly is half the battle with a social media marketing campaign. Why? According to Copyblogger 80% of people read your headline, and only 20% of people read the rest of your content. That’s why the site says writing headlines is a critical skill – one that you have to get right to avoid social media marketing failure.

Upworthy’s co-founder Peter Koechley agrees that “a really excellent headline can make something go viral.” In an article on Wired, he revealed that getting the right headline for a story can make a 500% difference in the number of clicks the story gets. So how can you use headline science to help with social media marketing? Check out these resources.

4 Studies on Writing Headlines

1. Research from Moz shows that there are five main headline types that make readers click. These are:

  • Normal (Why donuts are the perfect food)

  • Question (What makes donuts the perfect food?)

  • How to (How to make the most out of an all-donut diet)

  • Number (The five most delicious donuts)

  • Reader (Things you should remember when eating a donut)

The study also found that headlines with numbers on them did the best, and headlines which are clear about what they offer the reader do much better than vague headlines.

2. Jeff Bullas has conducted multiple studies into headlines for social media marketing. One study of Twitter headlines showed that list format content (closely related to content with numbers) performs well. It also cited evidence that getting the headline right can increase traffic by three times. Later research from Jeff Bullas suggests that how-to titles perform well too.

3. Iris Shoor studied 100 top blogs and highlighted the importance of titles which promise to teach the reader something. Her best examples include guides and taking a DIY approach.

4. Andrew Chen suggests that if you want to test a title or topic for your blog post, try tweeting about insights, ideas or quotes. As you monitor what is retweeted and favorited, you will know what titles and topics you should blog about.

Content – Studying Tweets and Shares

Want to build a significant social media following? The research shows that by making a few tweaks, you can vastly improve the shareability of social media updates. Here’s the scientific bit:

5. Dan Zarrella studied 10,000 tweets and worked out which words and phrases are most likely to be retweeted. The top five were: you, Twitter, please, retweet and post. In at number six is blog. That tells you that if you include a social media update with the words “new blog post, please retweet” you stand a better than average chance of having it shared.

6. Research from Fast Company supports that point. They studied the science of headlines and social media updates and found that asking for what you want (in other words, a call to action), works well on social media.

7. Want to improve effectiveness on Twitter? Hubspot found that updates with links get more traction and that the placement of the link is important. If it’s in the middle of the update (rather than at the start or end), there’s a major increase in click-through rate.

8. It’s not the same for all sites, though. If you want to improve your visibility on Instagram, QuickSprout’s study shows that the use of popular tags and filters, as well as image combination can help. Timing matters, too.

Social Timing

Speaking of timing, with the battle for attention keener than ever, it’s important to post those updates when people are most likely to see them. Here are some of the studies on this.

9. Kissmetrics’ research shows that about half of social media followers are in the Eastern time zone, therefore it makes most sense to post your updates when people in ET are likely to see them. Add in some updates for the Central time zone and you will cover nearly 80% of social media users.

10. Buffer’s statistics roundup suggests that it’s important to post on weekends, whether you’re posting to Twitter or Facebook. That means it could be worth investing in some social scheduling tools.

11. My Clever Agency’s infographic doesn’t just show the best times to post, but the worst ones, so you know which time slots will leave your content unseen. A glance reveals that posting during TV primetime isn’t worth it.

Of course, the more research you do on social media update timing, the less agreement there is, so the answer to the best time for you to post is unfortunately, as Dan Bischoff says, ”it depends.” You will have to do your own testing, informed by studies like the ones I’ve mentioned, to discover what’s best for your brand.

Social Media Design

Want to grab attention with your social media profile? Then you need to keep on top of design and layout changes. These two resources will help you.

12. SumAll designed an infographic that includes profile image sizes for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+ and more.

13. Tent Social includes all the major sites in an infographic that shows exactly how those images will display under different conditions.

What and Where to Share

What kind of content does best on which sites, and which sites are best suited for attracting your key audience? Here’s the science:

Click here for a larger version.

14. A recent article in Entrepreneur also breaks down the social media sites by the type of audience you are hoping to attract and the type of content you have available. So if your brand is focused on visual content and you are going for a female audience, then you need to be on Pinterest. If you have a lot of product demonstrations, then YouTube is a better bet.

15. An article on the Cahoots blog also points out the type of content that’s common on the major sites. Though it’s primarily focused on headlines, the discussion of the content types at the end is worth noting.

16. There’s more food for thought with Wikimotive’s study on social sharing, which shows that email remains the biggest channel for social sharing. The data is clear: don’t neglect email in favor of activity on the social sites; combine them for best results.

17. When it comes to Facebook, Kissmetrics has the answer. The research shows that photos outperform all other content on Facebook, resulting in a 53% increase in likes, an 84% increase in clicks rules and 104% increase in comments. Timing and length of post also play into this.

18. If you’re going to make a splash on one social media site only, the research suggests that you should start with Facebook. According to Hubspot, 70% of B2C marketers acquire customers via Facebook. Businesses in the wholesale, retail and consumer goods sectors also do well on Facebook.

As you become more advanced in social media marketing, you will find that some of the best, yet less predictable, results though come to those who are brave enough to work in the wild west of new social media platforms. Orabrush exploded thanks to being on the cutting edge of YouTube marketing. In particular, Orabrush learned more about how to collaborate with other people on YouTube that had a large following of their own. They also mastered the process of advertising on YouTube when it was still in its infancy.

When most people do not know how to effectively market on a platform, and you do, your cost per conversion can be astounding. Smart, cutting-edge marketers are learning how to use developing platforms like Vine and Snapchat in the same way right now.

Video and Images

19. MediaRun recently published an infographic showing that video and images are key to social media marketing success. However, what those images covered varied from network to network. It was also noteworthy that apart from Facebook, which functioned as more of a water cooler, the other major sites all skewed towards a particular interest area. Twitter updates focused on social media, LinkedIn on Business and Google+ on technology.

20. Socially Sorted charts the rise of visual media, pointing out that posts with photos get 80% more likes on Facebook and that Pinterest is the fourth largest web traffic driver.

Going Mobile

21. According to Marketing Exchange, 90% of smartphone users access the internet daily, which means they will be consuming your content and sharing it on social media.

22. The latest iteration of Jess3’s geosocial universe supports this, showing that there are nearly 6 billion mobile devices around the world and a number of sites that are totally driven by mobile users, including Instagram and Foursquare. Facebook and Twitter have 64% and 60% mobile users, respectively. In fact, a significant percentage of monthly active users on all the major social media networks are using mobile devices to access them. Clearly, having a mobile social media marketing strategy is no longer optional.

Putting It All Together

Using this data in combination with their own research, social media marketers can identify the right social media networks for their brands and create updates that will resonate with their audiences. But even with the science, don’t get complacent – there are already new trends to investigate for the year ahead.

Austen Allred is the social media team lead at Fit Marketing. You can learn more about his special brand of marketing magic here.

Image credits: Woodley Wonder Works, Wikimedia Commons, Pedro Ribeiro Simoes, Oliver Carre -Delisle